The Dash Action

Image by Free League [10 min read] Most roleplaying games don’t fall apart because of bad systems or lack of enthusiasm. They fall apart for human reasons. Someone’s ill. Life gets in the way. The Game Master has to cancel. That quiet assumption — no GM means no play — is doing a lot of damage to our hobby. This article exists because I don’t think that outcome is inevitable. I’ve been spending time with Dragonbane , and one of the things I’ve come to appreciate is how deliberately it lowers the barrier to play - not just the system, but what's included. Right there in the core box you get a solo supplement, a short adventure booklet, and a ruleset that’s happy being bent a little. Here you'll find  three ways to keep the session alive  - either with just you, or your group. Two that come straight out of the Dragonbane box and emulate the GM role And one optional twist that flips the problem around and emulates the characters instead None of these replace a great GM. That’s ...

  Image by Free League [7 min read] As part of my ongoing research into new tabletop RPGs, I’ve just finished a solo run of Dragonbane , using Alone in Deepfall Breach . Instead of packing the game away, I found myself wanting to stay. Not just to keep playing solo, but to extend the experience into party play. That’s usually a good sign. What follows isn’t a review in the traditional sense. It’s a snapshot of how Dragonbane feels in motion, first as a system, then as a solo experience, as seen through the eyes of a long-time Dungeons & Dragons player. Dragonbane as a System: Old Bones, New Muscles At its core, Dragonbane is a roll-under d20 system. If that makes you think of early D&D, you’re not wrong, but it’s also not the full story. Dragonbane traces its lineage through Swedish roleplaying rather than directly through Dungeons & Dragons , even if the family resemblance is obvious. Most of the time, resolution is simple. You roll under the relevant stat or ...

Image courtesy of Dicebreaker [25 min read] In my ongoing curiosity about all things roleplaying, my first real step into solo journalling was Be Like a Crow . The system itself is wonderfully light, but the theme is rich with invitation: slip into the wings of a bird, draw a few cards, and let the prompts gently steer your imagination. I chose the Gothic Crow to tether this experiment to my Curse of Strahd campaign, but the game is far more flexible than that. Modern, steampunk, cyberpunk, pure fantasy, it wears them all easily. I played over a handful of one to two hour sessions, and you can find my raw notes here . I began by drafting the prose myself, but found the process slow and uneven, so I turned to AI-assisted editing to shape the journal into something more coherent and atmospheric. If you’re more literary than I am and relish the challenge, I wholeheartedly recommend picking up this game and writing something entirely your own. For now, read on, and enjoy being a crow, if ...